October 8, 1948…NBC’s WNBQ TV In Chicago Signs On

October 8, 1948…NBC’s WNBQ TV In Chicago Signs On

Thanks to long time WMAQ staff member Edward Dabrowsky, and a few others, here are some great shots from times gone by.

The station signed on October 8, 1948, as WNBQ, the last of Chicago’s four commercial VHF stations to launch. WNBQ is also the third of the five original NBC owned-and-operated stations to begin operations, after New York City and Washington and before Cleveland and Los Angeles. Eight years later, it became the first station in the world to broadcast all of its programs in color.

Though NBC had long owned WMAQ radio, it did not change the TV station’s call letters to WMAQ-TV until August 31, 1964.

WMAQ-TV originated several programs for the NBC television network from its studios in the Merchandise Mart during the 1950s, including Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, featuring Burr Tillstrom and Fran Allison; Garroway at Large, starring Dave Garroway; and “Studs’ Place,” hosted by Studs Terkel. Television critics referred to the broadcasts – often low-budget with few celebrity guests but a good deal of inventiveness – as examples of the “Chicago School of Television.”

WMAQ-TV gained fame for its newscasts during the 1960s, anchored by Floyd Kalber, John Palmer, Jim Ruddle, and Jorie Luelof. Though its role as a program provider to NBC diminished in the 1960s, WMAQ-TV gathered and distributed more than 200 feeds per month of news footage from overseas and the central United States to NBC News.

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